Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction & Review - Last week, we began an exciting adventure through the Scriptures called Bible Storying, the big picture of the Bible from Creation to Christ.

Before the existence of this tiny universe in which we live, a far bigger reality already existed, an infinite & eternal God without beginning or ending exists in His home called Heaven.

God created angels who all loved and served God in a perfect environment existing outside of time and space.

Of all the angels God created, the most beautiful angel of all was named Lucifer who was in charge of all the other angels.

Isaiah 40:12 tells God is so big He can hold all the waters of the universe in the hollow of His hand.

This includes the massive Blue Whales that are roughly 100 feet long & weigh about 340,000 pounds…and there are b/w 10,000 & 25,000 in the world’s oceans, & all of them can be held in the hollow of God’s hand.

We also learned that God has measured all of the universe with the span of His hand - tip of thumb to tip of pinky!

But a problem developed when Lucifer coveted what God had - He wanted God’s position power & authority as God & Lucifer recruited 1/3 of the angels to join him in a rebellious coupe against God.

God flicked Lucifer, also called Satan, out of Heaven with ease and peace returned to Heaven.

God created a place for Satan & the rebellious angels with him called Hell.

God continued to exist in harmony with Himself and the millions of still loyal angels He created serving Him faithfully.

We learned from the story last week that God is awesome, that there’s no problem or no individual bully or government bully conniving against us God can’t handle as He sees fit.

We also learned that spiritual warfare is real, unavoidable and impacts our lives daily but God has given us the tools needed to stand against Satan & his evil demons.

Story Begins - Found in Genesis 1:1-2:3, Ps. 19, Ps. 104:1-30 & principles found throughout multiple verses of Scripture.

The triune eternal God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit continued their existence in infinite perfection after Satan’s rebellion.

Humans often become angry, bitter, withdrawn and depressed in the face of betrayal.

Having been betrayed a number of times in my own life or in dealing with grief and loss, I have found it hard to function, difficult to focus, losing all creative ability & inspiration for a season of time.

But that didn’t happen to God!

Sometimes humans will lash out in anger when deeply hurt or when grieving a great loss but not God.

God remained in complete control of Himself, His eternal home of Heaven & He controls Hell.

He didn’t “fly off the handle” as they say or “lose His cool”.

He didn’t curse or swear or have to say “Pardon my French.”

Nope.

God was perfectly happy, content & self contained, needing nothing in His glorious home called Heaven.

Make no mistake, it was a great loss to lose the Arch Angel Lucifer, the commander of all the angels of God due to his rebellion.

It also grieved the heart of God, but God didn’t lose His power, might or creative ability at all!

He was never in a fog of thought or inability to focus & function.

Satan’s rebellion brought the end of an era but with every change, even painful & hard changes brings new opportunities.

So God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit as Master Designers when back to the proverbial drawing board.

They counseled among themselves because the Bible says in Amos 3:3 “Can two walk together unless they are agreed?”

The Bible also says in Ps. 33:11 “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations.”

Sometime later the patriarch Job testified of God in 23:13 “But He is unique, and who can make Him change?

And whatever His soul desires, that He does.”

An anonymous Psalmist wrote “But our God is in Heaven, He does whatever He pleases.”

(Ps.

115:3)

Solomon, the second wisest person who ever lived next to Jesus Christ said two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor & a cord with three strands is not easily broken.

So God the Father, God the Son & God the Holy Spirit went to work.

When did this happen?

At the beginning of time as we know it, in the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.

Now the earth and surrounding universe didn’t have any sort of shape, and nothing was in it, it completely empty, void and nothing but darkness.

God’s Holy Spirit hovered over the waters.

Then God spoke and said “Let there be light!”

and immediately there was light!

God turned on the lights with only the power of His voice.

God saw the light and evaluated the light was good because God is good and everything He does is perfectly good.

But even though God had turned on the lights, He wasn’t done creating so He divided the light from the darkness and He labeled light and darkness.

He named light Day and God called the dark Night.

Naming things is a mark of ownership and authority.

By creating Day & Night, God created time as we know it because the evening and the morning were the first day.

We know this because God wrote it down in His journal the Bible in Genesis 1:5.

Well on Day 2, God said “Let there be a firmament in the middle of the waters, (we would understand it as an expanse of sky, a fixed dome of atmosphere above and below the waters) and instantly there was a canopy in place dividing waters from waters and it was so just like God said it should be.

It will be important to remember later that God separated water above the canopy and below the canopy so the earth was literally surrounded by water, but the earth was safe inside the canopy of water surrounding earth and the earth had it’s own atmosphere.

God also named that sky canopy heaven and concluded His work with the evening and morning being the 2nd day.

Along the way, God made sure that His creative work on Day 2 was written down in His journal as well because at some point inquiring minds were going to want to know what happened in the beginning.

Day 3 arrives and the Master Planner, Designer & Architect of Creation named God spoke again and when God speaks, major stuff happens!

Anyway, when God spoke on Day 3, He commanded that all the waters inside & under the canopy He made on day 2 gather in one location to let dry land appear.

Bam! Instantly the waters were collected together and dry land appears just like God said it should be.

What’s really cool about that is God gave a name to the dry land: Earth.

He can do that because He made it you know.

Then He gave a name to the waters He collected together: Seas! God looked at the earth and seas He had just created with approval because it was good!

I don’t know about you but I can never create something from nothing.

I need raw materials like wood or leather or metal.

Invariably I mess it up and have to start over.

As hard as I try, it seems I tend to measure once & cut twice, instead of measuring twice & cutting once.

God doesn’t have that problem & everything He says and does by just the power of His voice is perfect - not just perfect, infinitely perfect because God is infinitely perfect!

I’m already tired thinking about all that God did so far to have dry land and seas, but since God doesn’t grow weary in doing good, He kept talking and stuff kept happening!

God said let the earth bring forth grass and the most beautiful lawn you’ve ever seen - not just grass seed, real turf appeared out of nowhere.

God commanded seed bearing herbs, all kinds of flowers, plants and vegetables, fruit trees that bear fruit, all unique according to their own kind, and instantly the earth had grass, plants, vegetables and fruit trees galore!

Any plant, vegetable or fruit tree you can imagine was created on Day 3 by the command of God! Everything “according to it’s kind” - a category and class of grass, plants and trees in exact detail according to the Master Planner’s grand design, just the way all three of them, Father, Son & Holy Spirit imagined it would be.

Guess what?

God saw all that was good too!

There was evening and morning, the 3rd day was finished!

Things are really taking shape!

That formless, void, dark earth now has form, has light and darkness and is now teaming with grass, plants & trees.

God made sure to record that in His journal as well.

Day 4 - You might be expecting God to do more work on earth, but instead, God in His wisdom and power began to fine tune the light.

God said “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night, for signs, seasons days and years” (Gen.

1:14).

“And it was so!” God made two great lights, a brighter, greater light to rule the day and a lesser light to rule the night.

We know the great light for day to be our sun & the lesser light to rule the night is the moon.

God also spoke and made stars also.

He hung the sun, moon and stars in space to divide light and darkness.

You remember how I told you God is so big He holds the seas in the hollow of His hand from Is. 40:12?

Well in that same chapter, Isaiah tells us God is also so big He named all those stars He hung in space as well!

(40:26)

Those lights and their movements in the heavens regulate seasons here on earth.

It shouldn’t surprise you by this point, but it should impress you that God saw it was good as day 4 came to a conclusion with the evening and morning.

I should point out that God wasn’t sleeping at night after His work for the day was complete.

We learned last week that God sits above time and space.

He exists outside of time and so evening & morning only mean something to Him because He made them.

I should also point out that God doesn’t sleep.

Psalm 121:3-4 says “He who keeps you shall not slumber, behold He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber or sleep.”

Day 5 - God spoke again, this time commanding the seas and all the waters of earth to have an abundance of fish and every kind aquatic animal you can imagine.

He also commanded birds of every kind to fill the earth.

All sea & sky creatures great & small From Blue Whales to little tiny hummingbirds, God spoke and they showed up!

(Slides) Last week I told you about the size of the great Blue Whale, the largest animal in God’s Created order to demonstrate how big God is.

Yet what’s amazing is God is able to created the tiniest of creatures with exact detail.

The smallest bird is the Bee Hummingbird which is only found on the island of Cuba.

It measures a mere 2 1/4” long.

They are often mistaken for bees, hence the name.

They weigh less than 2 grams.

Since you don’t know how much two grams is, a common dime of our currency is 2.268 grams.